Panasonic FZ80D

 

Blackberry Flowers, Golden Gate Heights Park

When I accidentally dropped my FZ80 on a cement slab about a month ago, I was surprised it didn't simply explode into pieces. It actually still worked, but eventually the large ring at the base of the lens fell off, and more recently the lens would hesitate to zoom. Nevertheless, I'd have continued to use it until it died, but since Panasonic just came out with its successor, the FZ80D, I decided to upgrade now.

It arrived on Tuesday, so I took it around on my Wednesday walk and bike ride, and I'm happy to say I'm not disappointed. The larger viewfinder is my favorite part of the upgrade. The clarity is immediately striking. (I find it much easier to hold the camera steady and compose through a viewfinder than on a screen on the back of the camera.)

They also moved the diopter adjustment ring from the right side of the viewfinder to the left side, where it's less likely to be accidentally changed while handling the camera. However, I did still manage to spin it out of focus once while taking it out of my bike bag. [UPDATE: As of 10/9, I have never had to adjust it again. It's a big improvement.]

When I composed my first shots on my morning walk I remembered one glitchy feature shared by the FZ80. Even if the LCD screen is turned off, touching it can still change the settings. I'd set the focus to 1-Area (to better choose what I want most in focus, such as a bird behind branches), but when I went to compose the shot in the viewfinder, my nose touched the screen and moved the 1-Area dot from the center of the frame to the top right corner. Thankfully, you can go into the menus to turn off that feature. 

One thing I'd been meaning to do with my old FZ80 was take it more seriously as a camera instead of just setting it to Program mode and firing away. After all, that's why they call it a "point and shoot," right? Although I'd often end up with a shutter speed too slow to capture the action, I just accepted the missed shot and moved on.

Today I decided to try to remedy that situation, and it seems like the easiest way to increase the shutter speed is to increase the ISO, which can be set as low as 80 or as high as 3200. You can change the ISO with the little cursor button on the back of the camera. Now I set the camera to Program mode and crank up the ISO until I get the shutter speed I want. The max shutter speed is 1/2000th sec., so if you crank the ISO unnecessarily high, you end up with an over-exposed shot.

I also bought a new, faster-reading SD card, and the viewfinder black-out period after taking a picture is maybe shorter, but still somewhat obnoxious.

All the shots in this post used the camera's highest JPEG mode. (I haven't tried shooting RAW files yet.) The resulting FZ80D files are a bit larger than the old FZ80's, coming in at around 9,500 - 10,000 megabytes versus 7,000 - 7,500. Click on any picture to view it larger.

Autum Leaves, Forest Hill Steps

Redwood Leaves

Cloud Forest, Golden Gate Heights Park

Fallen Hazel Leaf on Moss

Echeveria elegans

Resting Bison

Black Phoebe, Cliff House (ISO 200)

This is the full-frame image view, with the full 1200mm telephoto extension (hand-held but bracing on a sea wall), from which the next cropped frames show different ISO settings.

Focus-tracking does work, at least sometimes.
(1200mm, image cropped, 1/1250 sec. @ f/5.9, ISO 400)

White-crowned Sparrow, Cliff House

Bathing Pelicans
(I kept them in my viewfinder in the hope of photographing them on take-off, but they just drifted farther and farther away, splashing and preening without a care in the world.)

Western Gull Flying Past Cliff House
(976mm, image uncropped, 1/2000 sec. @ f/5.6, ISO 200)

A foursome of wandering tattlers took a rest break on the sandstone cliffs during high tide.

Solo Tattler, Cliff House

This red-tailed hawk swooped out of the nearby woods in Golden Gate Park and landed on a branch right in front of me.

The take-off doesn't look terribly graceful, but at least the hawk isn't a complete blur (zoom at 855mm, 1/500 sec., wide open @ f/5.6, ISO 800).

Cabbage White on an Aster, Metson Lake

Cattail, Metson Lake

Lawn Agarics, Metson Lake

The FZ80D in a case within my bike's trunk bag. I got the case so it wouldn't get jostled around as much in the trunk. The case was made for the FZ80, and the FZ80D's larger viewfinder barely fits.

* * *

Scat, Brush & Critter

 

Moody Morning

Half a block into Tuesday's morning walk I thought about turning around to grab a rain jacket. There was just enough moisture in the air to bead on my glasses and dampen the street, and dark clouds were floating like ghost ships over the city. There had been no actual rain in the forecast, though, so I continued on. Luckily it's been one of those days that just looks like rain.

Although I brought the point-n-shoot, I saw very few birds along the Sunset greenbelt. Just the usual finches and nuthatches, and the western bluebirds were nowhere to be seen. After picking up a couple of grocery items at the store I headed back up the hill by way of the 15th Avenue steps, which shows on Google Maps as being a city park. It's a block east of the well-known Hidden Garden Steps which, thanks to their colorful tiles, are labeled a tourist attraction. I'd hoped for some bird action in the oaks and other trees, but nothing doing.

Farther up the hill I spotted a garden snail on a log along Grandview Park. It was so completely stretched out of its shell that it looked quite graceful and beautiful. That was my first snapshot of the day, and as usual I figured it could well be my last. I never know what's going to attract my attention until it happens.

Just a few steps past the snail I found some coyote scat. I'd already seen, just that morning, a couple others on the steep Mount Avenue stairway that connects 14th and 15th avenues, so I wasn't too impressed. But then a little movement up the hill drew my attention to the coyote itself, and I was glad I still had my camera out from having shot the snail. The coyote was mostly hidden by brush, but at one point he was in the open, and quickly heading away from me. I gave a little whistle, and sure enough he stopped and looked back.

Nearly Nude Garden Snail

Coyote Scat, Coyote Brush (a fall-flowering shrub), and...

Coyote, Grandview Park

I hiked the steps to the top of Grandview Park to see if I could make any further observations of the coyote, but it had either left the area or found a nice place in the brush to lay low for a while. A few purple bush lupines were still in bloom.

White-crowned sparrows were busy chasing each other, eating seeds, hiding from predators, and putting up with a photographer around the base of the park.

Here's a white-crowned sparrow with seeds in his beak, surrounded by coast buckwheat seed heads. I'm not sure what the yellow-flowered plant is.

This fluffy little ball of sparrow still hasn't grown out his tail feathers.

It was moody and broody down by the ocean.

Below the Cliff House

Cliff House Viewing Deck

I was impressed to see three wandering tattlers occasionally braving the crashing shorebreak to probe the sand for mole crabs.

The Pelican King

The Pilot Vessel

The Vessel Being Piloted
(The northernmost Seal Rocks are in the foreground. The huge -- longer than a football field -- Japan-flagged container ship One Manhattan, was heading to the Port of Oakland.)

No sign of Kingsley today, but a great blue heron was back at Metson Lake. (No sign of Hank the coyote in a while either.)

A squirrel in my neighbor's oak tree was chattering alarm calls again when I got home, so I quietly went to investigate, hoping to catch a hawk unawares (unlike last time). But the hawk was probably long gone. The squirrel, evidently a female, calmed down after I showed myself, then briefly hopped around in the crown of the tree to look for acorns before bounding away. Once again, our garden was full of little squirrel holes dug into the ground, and I still hope it's eating Oxalis nuts.

* * *

Fall Fashion

 

Bison Shawl

I was surprised yesterday morning to almost get taken out while in a crosswalk, by a parking enforcement officer driving one of those SFMTA golf-cart things. The driver seemed angry with me because I'd been walking in a blind spot caused by his side mirror, but maybe his self-justifying attitude and lack of apology for rolling past a stop sign and almost hitting me were really about being angry with himself for exhibiting such poor driving technique. 

It's a jungle out there, and it's far from the first time a driver has failed to see me as I was crossing a street. It's just the first time a driver has acted like such an ass (granted, he might not have been acting).

Anyway, the morning didn't bring the forecasted rain or drizzle, and it had warmed up a bit since Sunday. The wind died down and the sun came out even here on the west side of the city. It was another beautiful day to be outside.

Bison Bliss

These two bison were feeling frisky. The one on the right had mounted the one on the left, who shook him off. Then they both trotted down a hill into the flat meadow where they came to a stop to plot their next big adventure.

Speaking of the urban jungle, this raven is right at home no matter where he is, and happy to have what appears to be a fat piece of muffin to eat.

Beach Dune

Just arriving from its previous port call in Victoria, Canada, the Malta-flagged Celebrity Summit cruise ship heads into the Golden Gate.

Welcome to San Francisco

The U.S.-flagged chemical and oil products tanker Texas Voyager was next in line. 

The tide has been creeping higher up the beach around the time I typically show up at the Cliff House. This time the beach sand where the wandering tattlers had been feeding on my last visit was completely underwater. Bird life in the area was fairly quiet in general. A pair of black oystercatchers on Sutro Rock had their orange beaks tucked under their wings for a nap. A few pelicans were resting and preening near the lowest point on Seal Rocks, an area that's usually bare.

Three surfers had the whole place to themselves.

I've been riding past the crowd of gulls in this spot for days, if not weeks, but this time I couldn't resist stopping to check them out.

Every now and then, a bunch of the gulls on the windward edge of the group would rise up and fly around in a circle to land near the group's leeward edge.

Kingsley was back at South Lake. I'm sure I wouldn't have spotted him if not for his distinctive, chittering call.

There were a couple of cabbage whites flittering around the lake's edge as usual, and then I was surprised by the arrival of a western tiger swallowtail, here drinking nectar from blackberry flowers.

Soaking up the sun, with wings showing a lot of wear and tear. Also, the hairs up around the top of its thorax are quite orange instead of lighter yellow.

* * *

Blue Stripes

 

Steller's Jay, Children's Garden Pond

I don't know how I never really noticed the two blue stripes on the head, just above the beak, on a Steller's Jay. I suppose the jays are so easy to identify that I've tended only to glance at them. The two that I encountered at the pond in Strybing Arboretum's Children's Garden on Sunday were content to go about their business without sounding their usual raucous alarm as I observed them from the little boardwalk. Occasionally one of them would find a little seed or nut, then fly deeper into the bramble to hold it down and peck into it.

A Wilson's Warbler flew into view on the other side of the pond, and I thought I'd missed the shot as it darted from branch to branch in search of insects before quickly flying away. This was after a Townsend's Warbler had eluded my lens earlier, and before I thought a Yellow Warbler had done so as well.

The Flower Piano event was in full swing while I was there. I'd forgotten all about it and wondered if I'd find any birds at all with so much human activity going on. But I took advantage of the free valet bike parking and gave it a look. And a listen. There was a lot of good music going on.

Blue-Striper

This tree sported more vines than leaves of its own.

I always hear Tom Hanks in Cast Away, calling out "Wilson!" when I see these guys.

This was the best shot I could get of a yellow warbler as it darted from branch to branch. A couple of times it landed completely in the open, but I wasn't fast enough to catch it...

...but at least it worked out better than it did with this Townsend's warbler. Even without the intervening leaf, it's a bit shaky in that dim light.

* * *